Olympics Disappointment Teaches Azusa Pacific Runner Valuable Lesson

Since he started competing for the Azusa Pacific University track team as a sophomore, sprinter Patrick Nwankwo remembers being plagued by injuries, “mostly with my hamstring.”

The 23-year-old senior from Awgu, Nigeria, missed part of his sophomore and junior seasons.

But the cruelest blow came last summer while Nwankwo was at a practice meet in London preparing to compete for Nigeria in the 400-meter relay at the Olympics in Seoul.

Nwankwo was running a leg in the 400 relay when he felt an all too familiar pain in his leg. “Before I went to London it was fine,” he said. “But when I went there it was cold and that didn’t help things.”

Once again, Nwankwo had suffered a hamstring injury. It caused him to miss the Olympics and left him bitterly disappointed.

It also taught him a very painful lesson.

“It showed me something,” Nwankwo said. “I was disappointed because I worked hard for everything, and at the last minute I ended up with nothing. So now, whenever I’m competing and I start to do well, I think about what happened to me. It kind of humbles me.”

Nwankwo is healthy now and there has been a noticeable improvement in his performance.

He has produced exceptional marks of 10.20 seconds in the 100 meters and 20.68 in the 200 and is expected to play an important role when the Cougars play host to the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics Track and Field Championships today through Saturday.

The Cougars will be bidding for an unprecedented seventh consecutive NAIA title and Coach Terry Franson said, “We’re counting on big things from him. He’s vital to our title hopes.”

It’s something that Franson might not have said about Nwankwo earlier in his career.

“He’s had an up-and-down career at Azusa Pacific because of the injuries and hopefully he’ll finish on an up note,” Franson said. “He’s been healthy all season.”

A slender 5-10 and 165 pounds, Nwankwo has had success at the NAIA national meet. As a sophomore, he finished first in the 100 meters and he placed second in the 100 as a junior. He redshirted last season in hope of preparing for the Olympics.

Nwankwo says he has never been faster or sharper than this season.

“There’s something I’ve done a little differently in training this year,” he said. “Last year I didn’t squat (with weights), and this year I have. The coach also changed my training and I don’t run hard every day. I just go hard one day and the next day I run on the grass.”

That has kept Nwankwo healthy and he is hoping it will make his hamstring injuries a problem of the past.

Nwankwo enters the national meet with the top qualifying time in 200 meters and No. 2 in the 100 behind Pernell Garrison from Tarleton State of Texas, who has a best of 10.14 seconds. He also anchors Azusa Pacific’s 400 relay team that has the top qualifying time of 40.76 seconds.

Without a doubt, Nwankwo’s collegiate career is ending in a considerably more upbeat manner than when he first started.

Nwankwo began his college career in 1985 at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

A successful track performer in Nigeria, Nwankwo had been thinking about attending a Christian college in the United States when he was contacted by a friend from his country who had been competing at Seton Hall. “He told the coach about me and I came over,” Nwankwo said.

His first impressions were hardly positive. “I wanted to go to a Christian school, but when I got there I didn’t like it,” he said.

He said there was not much he liked about Seton Hall, from cold weather to cold people.

“The kind of coach we had there was different from the one I have here,” Nwankwo said. “The one I have here cares about you, your classes, your spiritual life. Everything about you. The one over there didn’t. He cared more about winning.”

Nwankwo said he stayed at Seton Hall for about a semester, long enough to finish second in the 200 meters and third in the 100 at the Big East Conference Championships.

When he decided to transfer, the first person he contacted was world-class sprinter Innocent Egbunike of Azusa Pacific--another friend from Nigeria.

“I went to the same high school as Innocent,” Nwankwo said. “When Innocent came here, I wanted to come here with him. But it didn’t work out like I wanted. That summer after the season, I talked to Innocent and he got me in touch with his coach (Franson) and I told them I wanted to come down.”

Upon his arrival in Azusa, he said it did not take him long to get a more positive feeling about life in the United States.

“When I first got to (Seton Hall), I expected things to be different,” he said. “People over there were not really friendly. But when I got here, that’s when I started liking the United States.

“It was a different attitude. They made me feel like I was at home. When I got to this program here, the coach didn’t make you think that you had to go in there and win.”

Only the Cougars have managed to win and Nwankwo is quick to give the credit to Franson.

“He makes it seem like a family,” Nwankwo said. “Track and field is an individual thing, but he makes it seem like a team event. That’s what makes him different from other coaches, and that’s what makes him win.

“You want to do well to impress him. You want to pay him back because he works so hard for us. This is my last year and I think he’s the greatest coach I’ve ever had and I hope to work with him more when my career is over.”

His college career has one meet remaining and Nwankwo thinks he is in his best condition ever.

“I feel a little bit faster than when I ran the 10.2,” he said. “I feel I can do better than that because I wasn’t doing speed work then and I wasn’t lifting as heavy.”

He realizes that his improvement has brought on greater expectations.

“I’m trying to do the best I can because people are looking for me to win,” Nwankwo said. “I’m not saying I’m going to win, but I’ll do my best. I know that I have to make this year my best because it’s my final year and I want to go out well.”

Nwankwo does have one year of eligibility remaining for the NAIA indoor nationals and is considering returning for the meet next season.

He can also look forward to the summer when he hopes to make the Nigerian national team in the 100 and 200 and compete in the African Championships, World Cup and World University Games.

There is also the long-term goal of competing in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

But you will not catch Nwankwo looking past the NAIA championships. Not after his previous experience.